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This pilot fish grew up in the Deep South, and his itch for IT just might be hereditary -- years ago, his mother got the job of managing the data processing department for a small bank.

"She really did not know that much about it, but was willing to learn and tackle the job head-on," fish says. "The bank sent her to some training 'up North' in Ohio in the middle of winter. She said she had never experienced temperatures as low as that and hoped she never had to again.

"The building where the training was taking place was at another bank's data processing center. The entire building was devoted to nothing but servers, tape backup units and other hardware.

"The training included learning how to keep the systems up and running, and one part focused on keeping them cool. She said they had air-conditioning units running 24x7 in the data center -- but on the roof, they had heaters running to keep the exterior units from freezing up.

"Another person asked about the expense of that and the answer was that it was a tremendous cost. She said the strange thing was that the building had windows that could be opened, and when she asked why they didn't just open a few, the trainer couldn't answer her.

"Later in the week, she noticed several windows were open -- and the building was much colder than having the AC units running."

Help Sharky keep his cool.Send me your true tale of IT life at sharky@computerworld.com. You'll score a sharp Shark shirt if I use it. Add your comments below, and read some great old tales in the Sharkives.

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